Making the mission possible

A loyal blog reader recently suggested that we record all of our Meet Our Museum programs for podcasting. It’s a fantastic idea which we had originally hoped to accomplish and, actually, some resourceful staff members are working on recording a select few. But, due to scarce funding and staff shortages, the museum isn’t able to make all of our programs available online. As you know, everything costs money.

Flickr photo by Randen L. Pederson

You also might know that your federal tax dollars provide a large portion of the Smithsonian’s budget. However, the Smithsonian—including our own museum—relies heavily upon financial support from private individuals, corporations, and foundations in order to share its collections and programs with the public. In fact, almost every exhibition, educational program, and Web site is funded by private sources. We really can’t do anything new without your support.

Our donors are special people who share with the museum staff a passion for American history. With the declining emphasis on history and civics education in schools, museums like ours become even more important to ensuring that our future leaders learn from the nation’s storied past. And this makes our donors more important than ever.

Thanks to all of you who, through your wonderful generosity, have donated to the museum. There are many worthy causes out there—especially in a time of such economic uncertainty—but know that the museum is better able “to increase and diffuse knowledge” with your help.

If you’d like to help support the work of the museum, you can donate here.

Mike Johnson is the Development Associate in the Museum’s Office of External Affairs.

Comments

[Grant]

Great idea. I head up an initiative to do just this sort of archiving of programs via podcast at the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC. It is actually less costly then you might think. Thanks to the low cost of good quality recording equipment and an abundance of free or close to free storage options on the web. Here's my feed:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/columbiamuseumofartpodcast

Grant Jackson
New Media Coordinator
Columbia Museum of Art